Ready, set . . .

I am sitting in my bed trying to wrap my mind around what I’m going to do in the next few hours. Little by little, I’ve been preparing my bedroom to serve as a set for the disabled erotic modeling I will do. It’s taken a lot because my bedroom has been a real mess for years because I’ve been so physically limited for so long. In addition, psychologically, part of me has learned to be wary. I am normally a very sexual person in appropriate circumstances. Indeed, I revel in my sexuality! I’ve even envisioned photographs taken of me and one of my “types” of lovers as we lay in bed semi-nude. It would be gorgeous and I’d be very proud to be a part of it. The thing that concerns me here is that, once I deliver the product, I have no control over what happens. I know what’s supposed to happen and I know that the site will do all that it can to protect me and the art if for no other reason than they lose both money and the trust of their models when photos end up where they were not intended. Be that as it may, all it takes is one person to buy the set and then put the photos on one of the many bulletin boards that cater to different fetishes. I know what happened to a couple of short stories I wrote ten to 15 years ago. They went what we’d now call “viral.” I’m still finding them and sending cease and desist letters! A friend asked if he could publish one of them on his website and I agreed. That was a very long time ago, the story is still there and I have no idea how to reach my friend.

The other issue that gives me pause is that I am about to launch a brand new business. In one sense, the photos could help publicize the new business. In another sense, the business could, at some point, not only publicize the photos, but spin off a site specifically for women of a particular type. I’ve always been a believer in the aphorism that less is more. In this case, the less skin shown, the more the viewers’ imagination can fill in the blanks. In this way, no one is in any way put in a position where they must engage in more explicit activity to receive higher payment. The site where I will put my photos does not pressure models to engage in explicit activity as I understand it. Until I experience otherwise, I’ll take the owner’s word for it. However, I do know that the more explicit material does sell better than less explicit. I can understand that and I do believe the models deserve more for their material.

I wonder, however, how many women are like me. I am doing this not because I seek to create art for art’s sake. I am doing this because I have no where else to turn financially. I am doing what women have done since time began: I am trying to save my family. My family consists of me and my three four-legged “daughters.” The primary issue is keeping a roof over our heads, especially since I need surgery and am in no way strong enough to undertake a major move, particularly since that move would involve packing my belongings, probably leaving many here, and leaving the state. Right now, I’m facing a citation from the city because my lawn needs to be mowed and the weeds our former lawn person brought in when he dumped infected fill dirt in our beautiful back yard (without permission, I might add) absolutely must be eliminated. I also owe my attorneys thousands of dollars and will have to break a promise I made to myself to never, ever give the bank that made a very predatory loan to my mother, KeyBank National, a dime. In short, my back is against the wall. I would be so proud to create true art with semi-nudes or even full nudes. My skin color lends itself well to black and white photography. I would not be ashamed or hesitant to engage in a photo shoot like that. Hell, I’ve done it before and was very pleased with the results. But I hate this. I hate this because I cannot be my full, wonderful, sensual, sexy self. I will do my best, but I don’t know if I can make it seem as though I’m not doing this under duress. The duress is that I absolutely must have the money that will come from these photos. Even a little bit every week would be immensely helpful.

There is so much to say and no time to fully explore the ramifications at this moment. I have to dust, make my bed, hang lights and get myself ready. I still don’t know exactly what outfit I’m going to wear. Oy! I’m also going to put on my smile, hold my head high and represent the very real sexuality of black, disabled, Rubenesque women. We ROCK!

The Story of T & G

I’m feeling angry, hurt and mean this Sunday. Therefore, I revised this post with some visual aids. God(dess) will probably strike me dead for BEING that way.

I’m actually at a loss for words. It’s not that there aren’t enough; there are too many. I’ll start with the title and, perhaps, discuss its inspiration. BTW, for this post, and maybe for others, depending on how I feel, the bâtard is being named. I wish I knew the French words for “septic cunt” and “hagbeast” or even “hagfish” because I’d use them as well.

One, possibly two, people who read this blog know who I am in real life and that I am an aspiring online magazine publisher. I’ve been putting the building blocks in place to turn another blog I have into an online women’s magazine since last fall. My goal is to go live this year. I do have a more specific timetable, but that’s my other life and I don’t really want to talk much about it here.

My heart and soul are dying and my mind can’t hold me up on its own anymore. I can blame it on a week off my antidepressants and that would be partially accurate. However, the antidepressants only allow me to cope with real life and make better decisions (I hope). They don’t change what’s happened. Certainly, they don’t heal me in places I’m not totally sure anyone can, including me. My way of coping has always been sex, music or the written word. I was; I am; I will always be, a musician, even when my only instrument is my voice. I am and have always been, a writer, even without a pencil, paper or laptop. I have written countless stories in my head that never make it to paper because there’s no need. They were written by me for me.

I’ve been playing with an idea for the last few weeks that I’ve decided to follow through. I am going to write a book based on my truth about Glenn and me. It takes as long as it takes. What’s in it is in it. I don’t care who gets hurt as long as I can write the truth. I’ve got a lot of documentation in journals, letters, etc. I only wish I had a screen capture of his wifey-slime pretending to be him saying, “It was a joke” when referring to his supposed interest in becoming involved again after I’d poured my heart out to him. I think the only people who might understand how destroyed I was and still am are the readers here and my shrink. I’m not sure my shrink understands completely. Then again, she did understand that it was cruelty in the extreme, and one of her specialties is abuse, so I guess she must get something.

In the last two or three days I’ve gone from righteous anger to crumbling heap. I’m trying to get angry again so that it becomes a motivator for action. The problem is that when I’ve been angry I’ve also been the most hurt. I’m angry because of the things Glenn did that utterly and completely betrayed me for sport. I’m angry that he let that hagbeast be the one who was in on at least part of it with him, knowing that I detest her and have since I was 16-years-old and didn’t even know she was seeing him. I’m angry that we laid in bed together for 17 years and there was love. . . the love. He never professed love to me, but I most assuredly expressed mine to him. Even though I was sleeping with other people, there was no doubt that he was my heart. He brought me to life in a way no one ever had and no one has since. Sure, we’d get tired of each other at times, but in the end, even when I basically chased him for nearly two years, I believed it would be Glenn and me. I took “themeangirl” seriously, believe me. I watched them together and could read them and knew it would be a tough fight but that she would not be good for him in the end. Therefore, being angry with him also brings up the intense pain. The pain overcomes any benefit I could have received from the anger.

This photo of a type of hagfish reminds me of stories told in some parts of the world about vaginas with teeth. That’s my image of the “hagbeast.”

The reason I was/am angry with Glenn is because he has yet to take any responsibility for anything. He’s a coward and what he and his hagbeast did was a twisted, sick thing. That’s not anger talking. That’s what I’d say if someone else told me that they’d been through what I have with him and the hagbeast. I have found ways to survive by running, closing myself off, crying myself to sleep and anything and everything else except drugs, although I have gotten drunk once or twice. OK, three times. Over the course of ten years, that’s not so bad. But it all has to end. I can’t do it anymore. I have things that need to be done in real life. The more I try to suppress what I feel about The Hagbeast, featuring GT as her apprentice, the sicker I will become. However, if I can write constructively and know that this is NOT my fault and that what was done was wrong, even though I already know that in my head, I have to believe I can heal.

I know that I’m no angel in this either. Hagbeast has had a ring through his nose for over 20 years. I don’t know if she knows that we were still sleeping together as late as four years after they were married and did so during her entire residency. However, I doubt things would have progressed as horribly as they did if he’d just not ignored me for two years and expected me to be in the same place when he decided to come back. I can understand him wanting to give his marriage a serious shot. I would have hated it, cried a lot, pleaded, bargained and did whatever I could. But in the end, I would have understood. This ain’t my first rodeo. But he just disappeared without a word. By the time he appeared again, he called me for phone sex. Ladies, I think you have some understanding of how . . . I don’t know . . . MIFFED I’d be about that. So I told him, “Sorry, but I am not currently sleeping with men.” He responded, “At all?!” “No. I am not having sex with men at all, nor getting them off online or on the phone.” *CLICK* He hung up on me. I was too pissed off then to regret what happened or realize how hurt he was–and he was definitely hurt–and that he’d loved me. Mom tried to tell me, but I learned to never trust anything unless he says it. He’d burned me too many times on that. Regardless, that’s when the foundations of my personal hell were laid. It took nine years and barely surviving a relative who tried to destroy me for me to come within hell’s reach. I needed Glenn again. He acted interested, but suspicious. I’d sensed someone else listening to us as he talked to me while driving down to Florida for a convention. I thought it was probably some male friend. Men are often jerks when they get together, so I just tried to pretend that I knew nothing.

By the time he arrived back home, he had a very special present waiting for him. First, a prelude.

I have loved Glenn my entire life minus 17 years. I loved him when I hated him and hated him when I’ve loved him. Hell, I love him NOW. However, when I found him and asked about resuming our involvement, I honestly thought the love had passed and that we could be good friends with benefits, meeting a few times a year to catch up on several levels, perhaps share a meal and go back to our own homes. I’d accepted, I thought, that he’d married someone else even if I detested her. Now, since she was such a hagbeast, I didn’t feel any guilt at all about shaking the chandelier with her husband. When Glenn opened up, we were great together. When he shut down, he was frustrating. He wasn’t all that happy about leaving me behind and he was lonely.

Hagfish are real, slimy, disgusting but necessary. I apologize to any hagfish who were hurt by my bastardization of the name of your species.

I’ve loved him nearly as long as she theoretically had and I’d been the one to soothe him when she was being a right cold fish. He didn’t marry me because I’m his “Gregory.” That means that he didn’t love me quite as much as he did hagbeast just as I loved Glenn a little bit more than I loved Gregory. I also wasn’t going to make six figures coming out of training, thereby allowing him to set up his businesses without having to worry about his next meal. In addition, she was able-bodied. There’s nothing I can do about that, so she won. I don’t happen to think that being able-bodied should have been a criteria, but it was. What hurt so much is that anyone who has ever seen us together felt that they were in a room positively crackling with electricity. Given that, why does having an above-knee prosthesis on one leg make any difference? What difference does it make if I developed fibromyalgia? Apparently, a lot of difference. She’s better arm-candy, a better earner and doesn’t limp and spend much time as a patient in a hospital.

Well, as I said, by the time he got back from Florida and after talking to him a few times while he was down there, I decided to make a film of myself talking to him and telling him of this love that came rushing up from its hiding place out of my mind’s eye view. It was corny, I admit. The music in the background was Donny Hathaway singing his masterwork, A Song For You. But it fit.

Here are the lyrics.

A Song For You
Sung by Donny Hathaway

I’ve been so many places in my life and time
I’ve sung a lot of songs I’ve made some bad rhymes
I’ve acted out my life in stages
With ten thousand people watching
But we’re alone now and I’m singing this song to you

I know your image of me is what I hope to be
I’ve treated you unkindly but darlin’ can’t you see
There’s no one more important to me
Baby can’t you see through me
Cause we’re alone now and I’m singing this song to you

You taught me precious secrets of a true love witholding nothing
You came out in front when I was hiding
Now I’m so much better and if my words don’t come together
Listen to the melody cause my love is in there hiding

I love you in a place where there’s no space or time
I love you for my life you’re a friend of mine
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and I was singing this song to you

I love you in a place where there’s no space or time
I love you for in my life you’re a friend of mine
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and I was singing this song to you
We were alone and I was singing this song to you
We were alone and I was singing this song
Singing this song to you

A Song For You lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

You see, by that time, I’d been a journalist for three very busy years and had definitely gotten people’s attention. I was going a few places to conferences and such, talking to people active in black gay circles and in the Welcoming Congregation movement. Indeed, that’s how I made my bones. I covered the 2001 United Methodist Church General Conference. It was one thing after another. My adrenaline was pumping and I was taking pictures and conducting interviews with people I would never have been able to get next to otherwise. I was in heaven! I attended the First Annual National Black Lesbian Conference where I watched an organization being born. Let me tell you, it was a beautiful experience. I got mobbed by the women when they found out who I was.

The lyrics to A Song For You say:

I’ve been so many places in my life and time
I’ve sung a lot of songs I’ve made some bad rhymes
I’ve acted out my life in stages
With ten thousand people watching
But we’re alone now and I’m singing this song to you

I really had lived my life on a stage of sorts. Mine was the digital and glossy paper stage. I’d written a lot of stories about a lot of people and organizations and they really were my life. To my great surprise, people knew who I was and appreciated my work. But I chose to sit on my office floor, with a cigarette (to keep me calm because I was scared to death) and told the absolute truth. I didn’t realize how much I still loved him when I contacted him and that these feelings came up almost the moment I began talking to him. I loved him regardless of his situation. We figured things out once and we could do it again.

I know your image of me is what I hope to be
I’ve treated you unkindly but darlin’ can’t you see
There’s no one more important to me
Baby can’t you see through me
Cause we’re alone now and I’m singing this song to you

I apologized for the way I told him I was, for all intents and purposes, a lesbian. I should have been more sensitive to his feelings because we had such a long and storied history. I told him that he had me if he wanted me and that I wanted him. I opened up completely. I was totally vulnerable.

I didn’t hear from him for two days. I finally caught up with someone I thought was him but, as it turned out, it was the hagbeast. I asked if he liked the movie. The reply was “No.” I said something like “Oh.” Some other thing happened that I can’t remember except that it made me go cold inside and my stomach clench. That’s when I first got a clue it wasn’t Glenn. He’d never talked to me that way. I ran to my bedroom to phone him and tell him that his wife was online pretending to be him and saying whatever else she said besides “It was a joke.” There was no answer. It is only recently that I’ve accepted that this is what happened. I didn’t want to believe that the hagbeast had that much evil in her. Certainly, I didn’t want to believe that Glenn was complicit in her games. It led me to wonder if they plotted the entire thing and laughed at me while they did it. I picture them making love while making fun of me. Even now, the humiliation is such that I really and truly want to die. No kidding. No exaggeration. If someone shot me right now, I would thank them. The only reason I don’t do it myself is because of my girls. They need me. Even an empty shell of a person is better than what would await them at the local shelter. So I live.

I don’t know how I’m going to get through writing this, but I will. I doubt it will be ready for submission even next year. So, I’m looking at two years. I’ve got to keep myself alive for at least two years. OK.

As the watchful eye of Mother Earth is my witness, I just want to die and get it over with, but I can’t. My babies need me.

Shit.

Congratulations if you’ve managed to get this far! For your efforts, I want to reveal two photos I sent to Glenn yesterday and last night.

This is a photo I sent Glenn so that he can see that I was in so much agony there were no words. The only way I could express myself was to burn myself almost to the bone and cut. I did this after the “It was a joke” comment.

This photo is filled with symbolism. Some of it would only be evident to someone who knows me. I sent this to him with a letter telling him that I’m writing our story.

The eternal quandary

I qualify everything I’m about to type with the fact that I am sick. Therefore, if a sentence doesn’t make sense or there’s an obviously misspelled word, please forgive me. I’ll probably catch it later, but it has flown through the holes in my brain for the moment.

What to do? What to do? I am so confused. I think I’m in a phase where I actually have an attraction to men. I don’t mean a specific man, but men in general. That scares the daylights out of me! I have no idea what to do. I am not straight. I haven’t been straight since I was about four years old. I admit that most of my intimate emotional and physical relationships have been with males, but that general attraction pretty much stopped in my late 20s. It was then that I came out as bisexual, but I wasn’t a “true” bisexual. I didn’t like men and women equally. I definitely preferred women even though I was involved with a man at the time who was the lover of the woman who became my first female lover. If there was a box I could check that said “It’s complicated,” that would be the one I’d mark.

I think there are two factors at work. The first is that Prof. B brought up the issue of me sleeping with men and having to become monogamous AND completely lesbian. I can understand both desires. If there were a woman who connected with me intellectually, emotionally, socially and sexually, and I with her, and; who didn’t think that developmentally disabled children were things, not people and certainly not “its,” I would be happily monogamous in a lesbian relationship for as long as we both shall live, as it were. I so want that! It physically hurts at times that I don’t have a mate. The yearning is so strong that it threatens to tear me in two. I’ve been alone most of my life. Yet, I am not someone who is emotionally equipped to be alone. I need that person I can trust to have my back. I need that person I can turn to when there is no one else who will listen, even if that person doesn’t have answers for me. I need someone who values me as a person and as a bright, loving person who has a great deal to give to someone else and to the world. I need to know that I really do matter to another person. If I could build that person, she would be a woman with a penis. Really! Thank the good Lord that penises can be ordered online!

The second factor is that I’ve been spending time at the gym, although I haven’t been in over a week because my body feels like crap due to a fibro flare I thought I could exercise through, but couldn’t. While I haven’t really spoken to a lot of men, I do have an opportunity to see more of them up close and personal. They don’t stink the way they used to. Did my sense of smell change? I also saw a couple who fit my two, very different, physical profiles of attractive men. The first profile is what gay boyz call a “bear.” That means big, probably bearded, strong, very masculine. The second is one I didn’t realize I had until men kept physically reminding me of the-ex-who-shall-not-be-named (TEWSNBN, maybe I’ll pronounce that “twos’ nibin”). That type would be a bit on the short side, no taller than about 5’9″; canine teeth that are noticeably sharper, and; arms that are slightly long for his height. As TEWSNBN once said, he looks a bit simian. At the time, I tried to deny it, but he was right. Like it or not, black men with that look immediately grab my attention.

There are a couple of each kind at the gym. I’ve said a few words to one of each type. Nothing I actually thought about, but things that came out of my mouth organically. For instance, there was this machine where I couldn’t lock in the weight and I asked this big, handsome bear of a man if he could help. He was a doll, as “bears” frequently are. He not only showed me how to do it, but explained a couple of the other machines too. The more “simian” guy just happened to catch my eye in the mirror as I saw him leg press an incredible amount of weight and I said, “Wow!” as my eyes grew big. He smiled back and I asked him how long it took him to be able to do that. He said that he’d been at it for years. I couldn’t help but notice how cute he was. Eh, I’m human.

I know that sexuality can go back and forth like a pendulum with some people, me included (I suppose). It’s as though there’s this smorgasbord out there and I want to taste it all. In many respects, I’ve had the sexual adventures of two or three people’s lifetimes. I just haven’t found the right person for me and s/he has yet to find me either. I’m not the kind of person who likes sitting around and waiting for things to happen to her. I like going out there and making things happen for myself. However, I think this is the most difficult task I’ve ever faced. I don’t know how to find the right person or how to be found by the right person. I feel as though I’m alone in a fatally opaque bubble where I shall remain until my dying day. I, like the rest of humanity, do not want to die alone. I have too much love to give and I know that I’ve got one hell of a hot-danged love affair in me full of intense passion, great sex, opening of windows to allow fresh air in and peace. I need to share it with someone who will appreciate it. I think my problem now is accepting that it is possible that person could be male. I’d have to do a huge mental make-over, but if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.

It has occurred to me that maybe my mate could be a male amputee. We could understand each other on a level no one else can. The idea only came to me a few hours ago as I was watching Thursday’s network evening news about vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan missing limbs. That led me to think about the photos I should have already taken and have been stressing about because I have zero energy, but they must be done because I’m utterly broke. I don’t do “poor” well because, frankly, I’ve only been poor once in my life and I could have hauled my butt back home, which is what I subsequently did. At any rate, it is my hope that my very tastefully suggestive photos reach a good man among some of the . . . shall we say . . . less than desirables. I know that I have to treat each with respect and I will. However, that doesn’t mean some won’t earn a greater respect than others. There are days and nights when it sucks to be me. I am, however, trying to make the best of it.

Lonely on the Great Lakes

Of mourning and brokenness

I am listening to The Prayer by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli. I wanted it sung at my mother’s memorial service, but her brother, who isn’t paying for a goddamn thing, inserted a vocalist from his church along with his church’s minister without my consent. I am so angry with him I could throw him through a window and not give a good damn. He is a fucking hypocrite. He stood in front of a church full of people and broke down in tears to the point where I went up to comfort him even though I had an internal shield of numbness holding back the deepest pit of grief. He and Mom were as tight as two people can be. In a dispute, she’d take his side over mine any day. For that matter, she’d take any of her brothers’ side over mine any day. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be, but that’s the way it was. So now, this tearful brother is going around telling anyone who will listen that I got a large insurance payment when Mom died and, therefore, he doesn’t feel he ought to chip in the remaining $250 owed to the church that graciously agreed to host Mom’s memorial service even though it had been many decades since we/she attended. She would have been there if we’d known the congregation was still in existence. We didn’t. We thought that the local presbytery had closed the church’s doors. Instead, it simply moved to a newer building out in the suburbs. At any rate, I am now stuck with a $250 bill that the minister “forgave,” but that I feel has to be paid because it’s just bad karma not to do so.

I exist thanks to minimal Social Security Disability payments that I just barely had enough working quarters to get; a small stipend from my mother’s retirement fund; Medicare; Medicaid, and, in all probability; food stamps when I get over my embarrassment and get real. Yet, I am the one who bore the FULL cost of my mother’s cremation and memorial service. I will make the payments in honor of my mother and make sure that it says that I am the one who contributed in her memory. That hypocritical, ass of a brother and his social-climbing witch of a wife will get no credit.

I do not agree with the minister’s take on Christianity at all. Through means of which I am totally unaware, this Presbyterian minister is a fundamentalist. She actually believes that the Bible should be taken literally. That isn’t the Presbyterian way that I am used to. What’s important is that she would not allow Mom’s BFF, an ordained minister, to give the eulogy because she wasn’t “Christian enough.” What the FUCK?!?! That’s another thing that happened behind my back. The BFF and I were really ticked as hell about that. When I casually mentioned that I don’t take the Bible literally and neither did my mother, the minister and the social climbing twit wife of my mother’s brother laughed at me AND my mother’s beliefs. I think that was a little inappropriate given that we’d just held a memorial service for her. That made no difference, it would seem. These are “good Christians.” Yeah, they are about as good Christians as I am an observant orthodox Jew. In fact, hell, under two different branches of Judaism, I was BORN Jewish because my father converted before I was even conceived. So, theoretically, all I’d need is a bat mitzvah and I’d be considered a full-fledged member of the tribe. I guess that makes me more Jewish than these women ever were Christians. No wonder they act as if they have no judgement as human beings or as supposed benevolent, almighty Christian zealots. The social-climbing witch was no surprise. She affects a pious air, but has been seen for what she is by the larger family. She is what she is. However, the minister is quite another story. She was just wrong. There are no two ways about it. I shook my head when it happened and turned to talk to the other people at my table. Pa-the-tic.

In case it isn’t apparent, I am angry. I have reason to be angry, but I am also tired of it. I know that part of my anger is from the mourning process. My mother shouldn’t be dead. I strongly suspect malpractice, but it will cost hundreds of dollars I don’t have simply to get my hands on her medical records. So, the cardiologist who supposedly said that there was no need to do anything about my mother’s aortic aneurysm will get off scott free. A vital, if confused, woman is sitting in my china cabinet on a shelf instead of walking around. I could also look at it another way. My mother had some form of dementia. If she were forced to face that fact, she would be devastated. Perhaps her relatively early death–and 86 years old is young for a death in our family–was a secret blessing. I don’t look at it that way, but someone else could.

I find myself wishing for days of old when my great-uncles, Mom’s uncles, were alive and were active heads of this branch of the clan. So much shit wouldn’t happen. For one thing, I wouldn’t be forced to leave town because I get absolutely no respect from the second generation of the clan here even though there would be no family reunions without all of the work and money that I put into them. I could plan one practically in my sleep with only six months lead time. There are certain things at which I am extremely good and there are some things I know very little about. I know my limitations. That’s why it is rare that I fall flat on my face. I admit what I don’t know and I either learn that skill on my own or ask someone to teach me. However, more often than not, I ask someone who knows what they are doing to help. My momma didn’t raise no fool. I wish I could say the same of everyone in the clan. My blood relatives are all incredibly smart and talented. The step-children we inherited due to the hypocritical brother’s marriage to the social-climbing witch are . . . well, let’s just say that they leave a lot to be desired intellectually. For that matter, if I really think about it, even his natural children have their issues. They are still smart and talented, but they get themselves into screwed up situations. I’m hardly the one to pass judgement on them, though. I’ve been in one fucked up situation after another. At least that’s the way it seems.

I don’t want to leave town at all. I keep telling myself that even if I change location, I can’t run from myself. The thing is, I’m not running from myself as much as I’m running from people who disrespect me at every turn. I can’t stand it anymore. I am not valued as a human being, much less as part of the clan. For example, I asked the only cousin I could if I could have/borrow $3,000 to pay lawyers to keep fighting foreclosure on the house for a few months while my credit improves. He left me dangling and waiting. I’m sure he knew that he was putting me through hell because that’s his specialty. He loves it when I squirm or hurt thanks to something he’s done. He’s tried to destroy me for over a decade. I didn’t want to ask him for the money, but I was desperate. In some way I have yet to discern, I was told by another cousin that I’d alienated the one I’d asked for money. She said it was something I said on Facebook. I’ve looked through all of my posts and I can’t find anything. I did make a distinction between “family” and “relatives.” I did say in a letter that I thought I wrote after I’d withdrawn my request that he was a relative but that I’d wanted him to be family. He knows what he did to me. How else am I supposed to feel about him? I forgave him some time ago. But I will never forget. I can’t. What he did to me over a decade ago easily falls within the Top 5 most influential events of my life. The first thing is being born. The second is dying (which we all eventually do). That leaves three open spots and I can fill one of those three, thereby really leaving two. That’s fairly profound.

Why stay in a place where there aren’t people who see me as intelligent, capable, imaginative, talented, etc.? All the cousin from whom I’d asked the money said was that my plan to pay him back would fall through and that I’d better have a “Plan B.” Since I didn’t give him the specifics of my plan at all, he has no basis on which to make that judgement. He also assumed that I didn’t have another way of getting my business off the ground. Is it me or is it men? They seem to feel they have all the answers to questions that haven’t even been asked. In their eyes, I couldn’t possibly know what I’m doing. That’s not to say I don’t take advice because I do. It’s just that the advice has to be from a credible source and the criticism be constructive and valid. As I painstakingly said above, I know my limitations.

What does this have to do with mourning? Well, as I said, I’ve been really angry lately. There are days when I feel as though I will boil over with rage. I have less patience for people, but definitely have patience with my girls. Even when the oldest of my resident master thieves, my middle child, stole a steak I’d delicately prepared for over two hours until it was finally broiled just the way I like it, I yelled at her and put her in a time out in her crate. I didn’t hit her at all. She has since gone on to steal my cereal by quickly standing on her hind legs and copping a couple of licks out of the bowl or knocking the bowl out of my hands from underneath. She’s getting more and more daring and I honestly don’t know what to do to stop her. I think she’s doing this as her way of saying that she needs more intellectual stimulation. We need to get back outside on our favorite trails, just the two of us. I don’t know how to fit the other two in, though, and I feel guilty leaving them here.

I don’t want to leave my home. My mother, in her dementia, put me in this position. Truthfully, I’m not sure this house will last another six months it’s in such bad shape. She took out a predatory home equity loan for half of the appraised value. Well, the appraisal was inflated by at least $20,000. She refused to see that. She also said that she wouldn’t die and leave me holding the bag. I was so furious with her when she did that. I tried to stop her using reason, pointing out that the loan officer was not her friend but was working for the bank, had a hissy fit and said that the bank would not see one dime from me. They won’t. I don’t want this house, but I need a place to live while I fix the good credit that was ruined trying to keep the house running on my measly SSD check. My bills didn’t get paid. I could barely feed the girls and me. Then, to have her brother spread the malicious lie that I got a lot of insurance money when Mom died? That puts a period at the end of my desire to have anything to do with 90% of the clan. I want out and away from their toxicity. I will end up sad, bitter and broken-hearted if I stay here. I’m sad, bitter and broken-hearted now. I don’t want to feel this way for the rest of my life.

In an earlier post, I asked for help making a decision about using this blog to promote my “character” when I begin shooting and submitting photos of myself to devotees of amputees. I’ve decided that I will keep this blog as is. Few know it’s here and I want to keep it that way. I can easily start another one specifically for the character I’ve named “Velvet Mocha.” I thank all of you who’ve at least read the blog entry even if your only comment was to say that you “Liked” it. I finally have all of the equipment and costumes/underwear/nightgowns I need for the first set of photos. However, I have to clean my bedroom from top to bottom so that I can use it as a set. I have to vacuum another room that has very fine sawdust on the floor that will get on the fabric I intend to buy as a backdrop that’s going to cost about $100. Needless to say, if I’m going to spend that kind of money, I don’t want to ruin it the first time it’s used.

I have some misgivings about taking advantage of a fluke of biochemistry. It’s not so much that as it is that I don’t want to get too explicit in the photos. I am all for erotica that celebrates the sexuality of disabled people. I do not want to be a porn star. I am deeply concerned that I’ll end up having to get more and more explicit in order to make the money I need to move. But, it’s always been women who do what we must for the good of our families. I’ll just have to suck it up and be as explicit as I need to be to sell photos and site memberships. I don’t want to look back one day and say to myself, “What have I done?” That is, I must admit, putting the cart before the horse. For now, I plan to make the experience fun, sensual and sexy. I can do that and not feel badly about myself at all. In fact, I would like to tap into my suppressed sexuality and allow it freedom once again. I can be proud of that even if this entire situation is one that should not be.

Help with a decision

There is a poll at the end and I need COMMENTS, damnit!!

I was on my way here to post when I saw that the last time I’d posted was way back in August. It’s not like things haven’t been happening, they have. I just haven’t had the energy to write about them.

The first thing that’s happened is that I’ve hired a team of sharks to keep this house out of the bank’s hot, greedy hands long enough for me to repair my credit. They are good guys, too. I paid their retainer out of the largest and last of the small insurance checks. Mother, for reasons I will never fathom, was woefully underinsured. Maybe it’s because she absolutely, positively refused to accept that I will never again work whatever hours most people work these days. I can do about 10 days of a 40-hour week and then I’m in bed, tired and in pain. Maybe it was because she was sick both emotionally and with some form of dementia. I have known that she was mentally ill for many, many years. Given the things she’d been through in her life and at such a young age, I realized that, although I could be angry with her, what she was doing wasn’t necessarily her fault.

I’d also known that Mom had some form of dementia for at least three years and probably more. I think, but am not sure, that it was three years ago that I tried to force her to see a doctor to get an evaluation. To my absolute and utter frustration, the only thing they evaluated was her memory. Her memory was fine. It was her ability to make decisions that was fucked to hell and back. She actually sicced her eldest two brothers on me in an attempt to intimidate me. That only goes to prove my point. The old Mom would have known that would do no good. However, given that the doctors’ only interest was in her memory, and my only option was to petition the probate court to order a FULL mental examination and risk whatever relationship we’d managed to cobble together, I chickened out. There would have been no “winning” either way around. If I was right, I wouldn’t “win” because I’d know the mother I had wasn’t the mother she was during my childhood and earlier adulthood. She would know the same and I’d watch the light go out in her eyes when she learned that to be the case. I just couldn’t do it. I loved her too much. Frankly, in some ways, I still see her as having hung the moon along with my father. God, how I miss them both! I did have a short chat with Daddy before bed, though. Things around the room kept falling down, so I knew someone was here. Specifically, some things I had nestled quite stably on his urn fell off twice. That’s when I knew I needed to talk to him and explain myself. I also know that it made him cry and feel helpless. I’ve only seen him that way once when he was alive and yet, I knew that’s how he feels now.

Well, now the lawyers have gone through my retainer and need several thousand more. I asked a cousin who could have easily helped, but thought my business idea was going to tank even though I didn’t tell him anything about it. I don’t tell anyone exactly what it is because I’ve had too many ideas stolen and used by others as their own, including ideas that he balked at first and then stolen himself. There’s no way to copyright an idea, only the execution of an idea. He is of the opinion that I’m spoiled, a ne’er do well, a flake and a number of other things not remotely resembling who I am. He also likes to emotionally torture me for pure pleasure. I’d give the reason I know this, but it’s too long and I’m too tired. In essence, I’ve shown something he wrote about me around a decade ago to three different therapists/psychiatrists. Three terms come up either in concert or isolation: sadist; narcissist, and/or; cruel. I feared he was on the same track again and said I’ll get the money myself.

The reason I’m here tonight is because I do have a way of earning this money myself and it just so happens that it fits somewhat into the reason for this blog.

I was not aware of this until earlier this year, but there is a fetish population of men (and maybe women) who prefer women who are amputees. I wish I could remember exactly who told me about it, but I do remember it was someone in the sexual abuse community. At the time, I was completely creeped out. I shouldn’t be surprised or creeped out given the high percentage of disabled people (mostly girls and women, but also male children and adults) who are sexually assaulted because we can’t fight back and are perceived as easy targets. According to the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, citing a study by the National Victim Center, 683,000 women over the age of 18 are raped each year. Only 16% are ever reported to the police. One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by the time they are 18 years old. Between 1/3 and 2/3 of victims, male and female, are younger than 15 years old. The book Violence and Abuse Within the Lives of People With Disabilities: The End of Silent Acceptance?, women with disabilities are sexually assaulted at twice the rate of non-disabled victims. I’ve known all of this to be true, but I did not know the exact numbers. I highly recommend both of these resources. They will obliterate any previous ideas readers may hold about rape and other forms of sexual assault.

By NO means am I saying that men (or women) who are amputee devotees are rapists or perpetrators of sexual assault. I simply mean that within any given population of people one will find those with a given fetish. Some smaller number of people who have that fetish will seek out the easiest targets and abuse them. That would be true if the fetish were pom-pom girls.

Difficult times have called for difficult decisions. After giving the idea a great deal of thought concerning how to hide my identity since I do have another life and getting down to the nitty-gritty of my comfort level regarding my own beauty and sexuality as a human being who happens to be a disabled woman–specifically an amputee–I have decided to move forward and serve as my own model for a site that publishes photos and movies of amputees. I hope to make the shoots fun for me and fun for the viewers who buy my sets. I began purchasing the masks I’d like to use and, at least until I get used to the idea, I have no plans to show more than a bikini model. Indeed, in some instances, probably less. I personally find a certain level of mystery to be highly erotic. My mother saw a set of photos I shot of myself for someone else about seven years ago. She actually couldn’t help but see them since they were mixed in with the other images on my laptop and had a bright red background. My avatar comes from that set. She didn’t disapprove. She actually kind of liked them because they were very suggestive while, in some cases, being very covered. Of the few that showed my breasts, I still had on a bodystocking. This time, it will be lingerie and erotic nighties. I understand the more explicit I get, the more money I can charge. Let’s just say that no one will be seeing my pussy for at least the next year unless their face is buried in it or there’s an “M.D.” after their name.

My question is whether or not I should keep this space and this nickname AWAY from those who purchase my photos or use it as a launch pad and area to correspond? I can think of several pros and cons for each. However, since it’s you all who have been with me throughout, I wanted to take your thoughts and feelings into consideration. In that vein, I have added an anonymous poll and opened comments. My primary concern is that those who do read this blog not get pushed aside by people panting after more photos. I know what my preference is, but it’s just barely a preference and I wouldn’t mind input that might change my mind and give me new information to consider. Indeed, that’s what I want.

So, without further ado:

I really do want and expect people to comment on this question because it affects how we relate to each other.